The highs and the lows

PORTLAND — Jay County’s volleyball season could be compared to a roller coaster, filled with both the greatest highs and the lowest lows.

They win one and then lose. They win two and then drop two more, not seemingly being able to find any sort of consistency. 

In the five-set thriller, Jay County and Daleville were locked in a back-and-forth battle before the Patriots finally came out victorious in the final set, beating the Broncos 22-25, 25-19, 25-18, 13-25, 15-13 on Monday.

With the match tied 2-2, it all came down to a decisive fifth set, which, true to form, was a roller coaster for Jay County.

Jay County found itself down 8-3 midway through the final set but came roaring back with another dominant set from Schwieterman and Mya Kunkler. The set ended with a familiar sight — a Schwieterman kill to end the match, which capped off a hard-fought victory for Jay County. 

“We’ve kind of been this team all season,” said Jay County coach Amy Dillon. “Like we either all show up at once or we don’t show up at once. And it’s just been a struggle to get them to find that. I just kept telling them like we got to quit playing individually. We’re not playing as a unit, and we just got to start playing together.”

Jay County (11-10, 4-2 Allen County) came out the gate firing on all cylinders, coming out with a 17-10 lead in set number one, forcing Daleville (20-5, 7-1 Mid-Eastern Conference) coach Gayle Hicks to call a timeout. The Broncos, however, clawed their way back, led by a flurry of kills from Trishell Johnson and capitalizing on Jay County’s errors to win the set, 25-22. 

Set number two started out about the same as the end of set one, seeing Daleville take an early 7-2 lead. This time it was Jay County that called the timeout. The Patriots then responded, climbing all the way back to tie it 14-14 about midway through the set. Daleville then collapsed, committing six errors, allowing Jay County to comfortably win the set 25-19. 

The Patriots carried their momentum into set three, leading the set from start to finish. Hallie Schwieterman shined, recording both of her two aces and two of her 13 kills in the three, ending the set with an assertive strike to seal a Patriot advantage.   

Set four was a completely different story. 

Daleville came out in the fourth set looking like a completely different team, jumping out to a 20-8 lead and never looking back, ending the set with an authoritative kill from Johnson, winning the set 25-13. 

“I don’t mean this in any bad way, but I felt we were the better team,” said Dillon. “We have a lot more girls on our team that are big hitters. They really had one that was a big hitter. I honestly still didn’t feel like we played our best. I just feel like we were still kind of playing a little bit in survival mode, but we were the better team, so we were winning.” 

Daleville was missing its other star outside hitter, Madelyn Rees, due to injury. Rees is a big part of the Broncos attack plan, as she ranks 10th in Indiana 1A volleyball with 316 total kills for the season. 

Despite missing Rees, Daleville put up a heck of a fight against 3A Jay County. Led by Trish Johnson, who had an out of worldly performance for the Broncos with 39 kills on the night.

Johnson, Daleville’s other star outside hitter, is ranked ninth in 1A volleyball with 318 kills, shined brightly despite the tough loss. “She’s great,” said Hicks.“She’s a senior and we rely on her. With our other outside hitter (Rees) out, we relied on her more than usual, and she stepped up and did her thing.”

Jay County, which has won five of its last eight matches, will wrap up the regular season on Thursday against the New Castle Trojans and are hoping to just get off the roller coaster. 

“We’ve been so up and down,” said Dillon. “I’m really hoping we can learn to work together as a unit and fix and tweak little things. We are not really a young team, but knowledge-wise, we’re young, so we make mistakes due to the lack of player experience some of these kids have had. So, hopefully we can fix that in the next couple of weeks.”